Saving Grace
by K J Rowling
Summary: Grace Owens is a quiet woman who has just moved to England from Wales in 1995 and meets someone who helps her get through city life. When it all comes down to sink or swim Sirius realises he's really saving Grace...


_A/N: I do not own Harry Potter but I do own Original Characters; this takes place during and just before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix._

**Saving Grace**

_-New Faces-_

_'In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.' _

* * *

Mrs Owens pulled the trunk out of the back of the car; a fairly young woman stood on the curb taking in her first ever view of London. Her dad was still sorting out something with the removal man at the time. Something made her stand there and look around, it had rained a lot as it always did in England. There was something magficent about London, yet something dark that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Everyone bustled past her, as if she was not there or perhaps some less-than-worthy statue of who she truely was. Her face expression stayed emotionless as her first impression of London made her shiver.

Her father had already opened the door of 11 Wisteria Lane; she looked from her new house to her neighbours', it skipped straight to 13, how... unusual. She had to admit there was nothing usual about her family, in that respect. Her father had prided himself with being a respectable and high class business man who had a small family which he supported well, although his daughter found him uncannily unusual. Her mother, however, was proud to admit normal would never be her. She enjoyed gardening and to her moving to a house with no garden was, in it's own way, a nightmare.

Modesty had never been a very good quality in the young woman, she would always over fantasize about looking perfect with that perfected hour-glass shape that her mother had ceased to pass onto her. Her long brown hair annoyed her constantly, it turned greasy quickly and she could never find the time to take good care of it. She looked more of a ragamuffin than daughter of the owner of the company Grunnings, which made drills.

Her name was Grace Owens. She'd moved to London from the Welsh countryside... her first ever impression of London was that of curiousity. As she shut the door of 11 Wisteria Lane she looked over the road at a large black dog, it's grey eyes concentrated on her.

* * *

Grace came to find, quite quickly, that London was not perhaps the safest place. She had to admit, she did not learn from previous mistakes and tended to make them again. It was Grace's third mistake that she remember the clearest, perhaps if she had spent a little less time upstairs in her room listening to music and a little more time making friends she would of understood this earlier on; London was prone to crime.

Grace had been walking down a street at the time, finding a twenty-four year old woman obvious easy pickings two men jumped out, grabbed her bag and made off with it. She started to chase after them but she had always been, needless to say, a rubbish sportswoman. It was then she had her first encounter with the black Dog she grew to know as Blackie; he bounded out of a nearby garden, barking furiously as if he knew her problem. Jumping up to one of the two men he pulled him down, his awkwardly large dog body brang him down hard on the ground and he started to wrestle with him, snapping and snarling. The other man was clearly shaken, pushing the dog off only because his compainion had the bag in his hands.

"What are you doing?" One of the men asked as the other started to tie his shoelaces so he didn't trip on them and snatching the bag. "You'll never outrun it!"

"I don't have to outrun it, I just have to outrun you," his friend said, turning and running again as the dog started after him again. The sun was going down now and Grace watched as the huge black dog attacked the man, both sillohetted. She was laughing silently but much too shaken to laugh outloud, the dog wasn't hurting the man, just trying to retrieve the bag. It occured to Grace that perhaps that dog has been trained for security reasons, it would make sense given the amount of crimes that took place. The man finally let go of the bag and ran off, his friend running quickly after him.

"Good boy," Grace said to the dog, bending down and holding her hand out. The dog nuzzled into the bag, as if looking for something. Nothing of value was inside, just Grace's purse with a little bit of money and some eyeshadow; also inside was a necklace that her horrid Grandmother had given her. The dog, obviously well training, pulled the necklace out and threw it towards her then started to drag the bag away again. I picked up the necklace and ran after the dog, it bound into the back alley, wagging his tail playfully.

"Come on boy, bring it to me," Grace said. Great, she thought, what's worse, getting my bag from two human beings that understood English or a dog? It wasn't as easy as it looked. The dog had large teeth that she didn't want to become overly friendly with. Eventually, outside Grace's back gate, it dropped the bag and ran off happily.

"Good afternoon," Grace heard a voice, she turned to face a man who had straw colored hair that had greyed in some places. "Is this yours?" he asked, holding the bag up.

"Oh yes, it is, thankyou," Grace replied, she took the bag from him and smiled; the man was perhaps in his mid-thirties though prematurely aged for some reason. She held the sequined bag to her side, awkwardly.

"I'm sorry if my dog caused any trouble," the man said, breaking the silence.

"Oh no, infact it's thanks to him I got my bag back, if anything I should be apologising for any trouble. He's a well trained dog; Newfoundland?" Grace inquired.

"Half," the man replied. "Are you the new neighbour?"

"Yes I am," she replied, politely. "Twenty-four and still living my parents, I'm pathetic," she laughed, leaning on the gate, wanting to get away.

"No, you're not... you're just..." the man said, thinking hard.

"Pathetic, it doesn't matter, you can call me that," she said, smiling now.

"I don't think you're pathetic at all," the man replied, sounding serious.

"Rubbish!" Grace laughed. "Actually, I'm Grace Owens, I hear a ton of puns about it every day, none of them are new to me."

"Amazing Grace?" the man asked and she smiled.

"I'll have to remember that one now; that's a song title right?" Grace asked.

"That's right. I'm Remus Lupin, and trust me I _have_ heard all the puns!"

Grace laughed again, "it's been a pleasure," she smiled and with that she opened the gate and went inside.

* * *

"It was insane," Remus Lupin exclaimed, pacing the front room of 12 Grimmauld Place.

"Oh sit down, Remus, you're going to wear a hole in my carpet," Sirius snapped back.

"It was preposterous, maniac, irrational..." Remus continued to pace and complain as his friend sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Irrational? You sound like Albus now with all this 'stay cooped up inside' nonsense!" Sirius growled.

"Sirius, you are still wanted by the Ministry! For ten thousand Galleons no less!" Remus spat. "Albus has your best intrests at heart, he's trying to keep you alive!"

"If I have to stay here the rest of my life maybe I don't want to be alive."

"Now that's nonsense!" Remus replied, finally stopping and facing his friend. "What about Harry?"

What about Harry?" Sirius repeated. "He has Albus ruling his life, the kid has no freedom."

"If he did have freedom, he like you, would most likely be out risking his life," Remus said. "Sirius, we need all the people we can in this war, we lost enough people last time-"

"- Last time? Last time we lost Lily and James. They were cooped up inside, they were 'safe' but they got killed!"

"This is different, James didn't run around in animagi form playing good samaritan for Muggles!" Sirius snorted slightly at the idea of a Muggle seeing a fully grown stag charge out at someone and knock them down.

"I wasn't playing good samaritan, I was helping her! She would of lost her bag!"

"That would of been a lesson well learnt then," Remus snapped.

"A lesson about what? That London has a growing crime rate? Great lesson Moony, nothing you couldn't learn by just looking out your window. I was saving one person from being a victim, fair enough!"

"You were saving Grace," Remus said.

"Excuse me?"

"You were saving Grace from something she has to learn, she's... twenty-four, she has to take precautions."

"Oh yeah, look over her shoulder everytime she goes out!"

"Sirius, you're the one who should be looking over their shoulder. If you don't take precautions then you'll be the victim; don't listen to Severus and his remarks." By now Mrs Black, her portrait at least, had woken up and was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"_Filth! Half-breeds! Mutants! Freaks! How dare you foul and bismirch the house of my fathers!" _

A plump woman hurried into the room, she had red hair and an angry expression on her face.

"Honestly," she said, going to close the curtains on Mrs Black so her echoing screams died. "Can you keep the noise down?" she asked.

"I'm sorry Molly," Remus said, the woman gave Sirius a rather nasty glare as she left the room.

"She still hates me for suggesting Mundungus joins the Order," Sirius sighed.

"Well..." Remus sighed, the little arguement was clearly over; they weren't going to come an agreement on how stupid Sirius had been, not today.


End file.
